Quite often the first iPhone is called the engine of modern smartphones. And in some, probably so. But those who have long followed the development of modern technology, remember that the first smartphone from Apple was not “smart” enough to even banally copy and paste text.

The iPhone came out in the summer of 2007 and didn’t really have that basic feature. It came out two years later with the release of iPhone OS 3 along with the release of the iPhone 3GS – the third iPhone model. But why did we have to wait so long for the right and fairly simple tool?

Although this question no longer makes much sense, the amusing answer to it was still interesting to learn. And it was given by former Apple developer who participated in the development of the iPhone, Ken Kocienda:

The original iPhone didn’t have cut/copy/paste. Infamous! The quickest explanation is that I didn’t have time to do it right. I had too much keyboard, autocorrection, and text system work to do. The design team didn’t have time either. So we passed on the feature for 1.0. https://t.co/SLncIxohkk

— Ken Kocienda (@kocienda) June 19, 2022

There were no free hands for the simple function. Ken joined Apple in 2001, and while working on the first iPhone, he simply didn’t have the possibiity to implement copy-paste properly. Although later he still managed to add such functionality. In addition, the idea of magnifying text loupe (increasing the text when you keep your finger on it) belongs to Ken.